Monday, July 18

The Man Who Came Before

There's a piece in every human's soul only able to be filled by a father.

My father means alot to me. There's so many memories and thoughts that are able to flood my mind when I think about him. Sometimes I arrogantly dam them up to only focus on the present issues. Its pretty much just pessimism on my part. I've just become so used to the normative and casual presence of a father that an act out of love doesn't occur to me as such; and most of the time it passes my senses without a notice. Honestly, I feel pretty bad about this, and want to change it.

Thinking a bit on this earlier today, I realized that as a child, my dad meant the world to me. He was the epitome of fatherhood and nothing could trump him. Then sometime around adolescence I discovered that he wasn't perfect and life went downhill. I started to rebel against both of my parents. I gained weight. I got angry too much. Things happened because I discovered that my father was human. You could probally call this time the middle ages of my life. It was a transition from recognizing the plight of humanity into recognizing the grace of the Divine. God began to make himself present in my life as The Father. It didn't eliminate my need for my own father or the deep desire within my heart to love him in return, but I think it strengthened it; it gave room for me to learn a greater love.

My father is a great man. He has gone through 60 some years of life full of people, experiences, history...I keep forgetting this. I forget that he has gone before me. He has taken my life into his from the day I was born and nurtured me into who I am now. Things didn't always go as planned, but no matter how much I may not like it, I reflect my father. I have a choice to either accept that I am the son of my father and utilize it in developing my life, or to reject it and try to be someone else completely.

God the Father is in every human being. We are made in his likeness. Our souls are reflections of his very own nature. Theres only two choices; and you do choose, even if passively. Either choose to live boldly reflecting the Father's heart, or reject it and try to be your own deity.